Fast growing Hamilton needs another fire station, possibly two - union

Tuesday, 21 April 2026

NZPFU Hamilton local secretary Jay Culhane says Hamilton needs at least one more fire station.

Hamilton’s industrial expansion and a stalled national needs assessment has left the city needing “at least’’ one new fire station, the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union warns.

NZPFU local secretary Jay Culhane says the city faces a significant “gap” in operational capability, with resources stretched thin.

Culhane said Hamilton has just three professional fire stations, staffing four crews — a total of 16 firefighters on duty at any one time — which is increasingly insufficient to meet demand.

“We are very stretched in regards to meeting our response times,” he said, pointing to increasing reliance on bringing in volunteer brigades from surrounding areas such as Cambridge, Te Awamutu and Ngāruawāhia to deal with concurrent incidents in the city.

If two major events happen at once, Hamilton is ‘tapped out’ and can’t field a command unit, NZPFU Hamilton local secretary Jay Culhane says (file photo).

In such cases, resources within Hamilton are quickly exhausted, forcing crews to be called in from outside the district, leading to delayed responses.

Culhane said the city’s growth is not only increasing call volumes but also the complexity of incidents with expanding industrial activity, including inland port operations, heavy freight and hazardous materials transport, adding newer risks for emergency services.

Current constraints also mean Hamilton cannot field a command unit should there be two major events at the same time “because we are tapped out,’’ Culhane told Waikato Times.

“We’ll crew firefighting pumps but we’re not going to be able to get a command unit there quickly, so it has to come from out of district.’’

Despite these pressures, a national “future operational capability” project designed to assess fire service needs has stalled.

Culhane said the work, which began as a pilot in 2024, is now “stuck” and not tied to any decision-making process due to organisational restructuring.

Firefighters say they are getting more calls and they’re getting more complex (file photo).

“We’re in no man’s land. We really need to get out of it.”

While a full assessment of future needs has not been completed, Culhane said firefighters believe Hamilton, , requires at least one additional station — but more likely two — along with more personnel.

As an immediate measure, the union is calling for six more firefighters per shift, which would increase on-duty staffing to 22 and allow for a permanently crewed hazardous materials unit.

Culhane is urging local MPs and Hamilton City Council to advocate with the Government for interim solutions while national planning remains unresolved.

“From an operational perspective, the key issue is a timing gap, Hamilton’s growth has outpaced the current emergency response model, and that is now being experienced in day-to-day operations through cross-crewing, reduced availability, and increased reliance on surrounding brigades,’’ he said

“There are both long-term and short-term solutions already identified. What I’m trying to achieve is visibility of the gap between Hamilton’s growth and its emergency response capability, and to support practical, short-term improvements while longer-term solutions are worked through.’’

A report from HCC Community Committee chair Emma Pike and deputy chair Anna Casey-Cox confirmed that several elected members have recently been approached to outline “concerns about the alignment between Hamilton’s rapid growth and current emergency response capacity’’.